Chapter Text
“Akhi?”
Jason checked on the chicken pot pie in the oven before returning to the task of rolling out another crust. It was… cathartic, in a way, to do something non-violent with his hands. Focusing on the strength it took to flatten homemade dough to the exclusion of all else wasn’t something he’d planned on during his day off, but here he was, cooking his third pie. This one would have to be a dessert. He’d already made too much real food for two people. “Yeah?”
“Why do we not own a service dog?”
Jason glanced at Damian’s expectant green eyes, brain stalling. He’d prepared for something along the lines of “How do you draw a circle?”, like most of the other art-related questions the kid had been asking for the past few days, in which case Jason would answer “Perfect circles are an illusion” instead of “I don’t fucking know”. This felt like a hard one-eighty from color theory. “Uh… why?”
Damian returned to his too-large sketchbook, unruffled. “I have been researching service animals on your laptop.”
“When?”
“During your patrols.”
Jason cursed himself in the sanctity of his own head. His nights out checking shipments and having meetings and otherwise staking his claim over Crime Alley had become extremely short this week; everyone seemed anxious to lay low for a while after the rumors of the Joker’s death had spread across the city. Still, not short enough, apparently. This called for better parental controls, though if Damian had retained any of the Beginner Vigilante 101 lessons they’d started up after… The Incident… those wouldn’t stop him. “Okay, what about ‘em?”
Damian looked up again with mild annoyance. Maybe he hadn’t expected to have an actual conversation about this. “You need one, of course, for the effects of the Pit and nightmares and anxiety. Why have we not obtained it yet?”
Jason’s brain stalled for a second time. The worrying smell of bubbling filling brought him back to reality, so he rushed to the oven, pulling on a mitt. “We can’t handle pets right now, kiddo.” I’ve got my hands full as it is.
“You told me that once we arrived in Gotham, Akhi, that I could have all the animals I wanted.”
Jason paused in the act of cutting up the heavenly pie, squeezing his eyes shut. It had been mind-numbingly hot, but he actually remembered that. Geez, the desert felt so far behind them… “I also envisioned a larger home to keep them in.”
Damian tugged on Jason’s pant leg, suddenly at his side. “We might turn one of your warehouses into a rescue shelter, then, mightn’t we? I have been observing the homeless animals around our apartment, Akhi. They have schedules, and some of them are friends, but some of them are not.”
Jason shucked his apron, bending at the waist to heft Damian onto his hip. “You’re a bleeding heart for those animals, huh?”
Damian wriggled to get comfortable, nostrils flaring eagerly when he caught sight of the food. “Some of them go missing. I want to take care of them.”
“Alright, Sir Fluffs-A-Lot.” Jason set the kiddo down at the island, laughing softly, and served up their plates. “I’ll take a look at a smaller warehouse for this… project, but no promises. Worst comes to worst, I’ll let you start setting traps to take ‘em to the other shelters, okay?”
Damian set his sketchbook aside to dig in, brow still solemnly creased. “This is acceptable.”
Jason slid into the seat next to him, sighing. It was good to be off of his feet. It was good to rest . He hadn’t felt this relaxed since… hell… ever? There was a lack of tension that he hadn’t noticed before. He owed it to the kiddo swinging his feet in their teeny apartment kitchen, so the least he could do was help with the whole homeless animal thing. “Whatcha drawing there?”
Damian pulled the sketchbook closer, staring quizzically at his own creation--- a novice drawing of the Statue of Liberty as seen from below. The detailed eyes, crown, and torch had obviously made the most subconscious impact, because they were much more skillfully fleshed out than the rest of it.
“That’s amazing for a beginner,” Jason praised in the following silence.
“Tt… of course. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well, yes?” Damian finally returned to his food. “I continue to see it in my dreams.”
Jason chewed thoughtfully for a while. How far could he go with this before causing embarrassment? “May I hang it on the fridge?”
Damian looked up, wide-eyed. “Why?”
Jason widened his eyes back. “Because I like to look at it.”
Yup, cue the heavy blush. Dami was definitely shy about this. “If you’d like.”
Jason popped more food into his mouth, decidedly switching the subject. “‘ou ‘aste it?”
Damian tapped his fork on his plate. “… peppercorns?”
“Good.” Jason ruffled his hair, grinning. “We’ll make a cook of you yet.”
Damian flicked a pea at him.
************
“I haven’t been the best brother, huh?”
It was with an indignant glare that Damian looked up from the third knife he was hiding on his darkly clothed person. “Why do you say so?”
Jason pulled his helmet on with a shrug. Feeling bad about his absent rage during their first few weeks in Gotham didn’t seem like a productive use of his time right now, but as the old man had used to say--- “You can’t rush recovery.” Jason was present for his brother now. That was all that mattered. (Right?) “You know you probably won’t need to stab him with… uh, four knives.”
“Two is one; one is none,” Damian recited perfectly, parroting one of Jason’s favorite quotes. He pulled his hood up. “I am ready.”
Hood made sure the lights were off before crawling out the window. “Let’s go then.”
Damian scrambled lightly up his back, latching on. “Will we travel very fast?”
Hood didn’t want to go fast… Hood didn’t want to go at all. He knew what a rush it was for Damian, though, so he climbed up to the roof before tapping the signal on the kid’s arm. Damian’s grip tightened in anticipation, and with a ghost of a laugh, they were off.
It didn’t take long to reach the designated address, so Hood circled a few times to check the perimeter while he tried out some new moves. Damian’s occasional gasp of excitement made a warm glow settle in Hood’s stomach. He was never afraid of Damian falling off. The kid had practically grown up on Jason’s back. He belonged there.
When a streak of blue appeared in the shadows nearby, Hood finally resigned himself to the inevitable. He pulled out his new grapple, forgoing the usual freerunning for a move he never thought he’d use again. He shot at a water tower without slowing down, tugging to be sure of his anchor, and leaped from the building at an angle. Familiar gravity pulled at his joints as muscle memory borne of hours climbing in a mountain jungle kicked in. Damian’s startled laugh echoed in his ear, snatched away by the wind. They landed as silently as a feather. Nightwing paced across the other side of the rooftop, unobservant.
Hood retracted his grapple, crouched down, and deposited a very wired kid into the shadows. Then, gun drawn, he stepped into the moonlight. “Goldie.”
Nightwing whirled almost comically fast, ready to fight for exactly two seconds before he recognized who he was talking to. His body language eased into mild wariness. “Hood.”
Hood planted his feet, shoulders back. He knew he was being confrontational about this. He also didn’t really care. “I have a new mission now, and you can’t stop me.”
Dick’s head tilted. “Uh, my week was great. I found a new taco place.”
Hood scowled beneath his helmet. He’d thought of at least twelve different ways that this meeting was likely to go, and surprise to no one, Nightwing was already off script. He moved down to the next item under “Announce Your Intentions”; scaring Nightwing away. (No, he wasn’t being bitter, alright? He was just… playing his most volatile cards up front.) “How’s your little birdie doing? Stuck under babysitting watch it seems.”
Nightwing’s left hand twitched in a slight flick; an unconscious movement that usually meant he was listening to someone over coms. (Hood’s stomach curdled. Nothing had really… changed… had it?) “Are you trying to piss me off? You’re not doing a very good job; try again.”
Hood’s grip faltered on his pistol. He lowered it a few inches. The bulge of bandages could be spotted around Nightwing’s leg under his suit if you knew where to look. “I don’t need much convincing for a fight, Dickhead. You should know that by now.”
Nightwing limped slightly to the left, but only for the sake of movement. “I don’t think you wanna fight, Jason. I think you want a reason to dip. I’m not leaving just ‘cause you have an issue with my mantle living on through another kid, and I’m not losing any sleep over the dwindling trafficker population, either, so why don’t we start over? Hi, I’m Nightwing. I missed you, and I’m here to talk. What are you here for?”
Hood finally lowered his pistol, throat thick. He itched to shoot the idiot dumbass where he stood. Not BADLY, just… enough to get him to shut up. (Why am I here?) “I wanted to kill him.”
“At some point, maybe.” Nightwing shrugged lightly, lenses trained on Hood’s helmet. “You didn’t though. You’re a protector, Jason. You couldn’t kill a kid.”
Hood’s ears rang. Damian had said much the same thing.
“Oh, and for the record?” Nightwing’s fists unclenched. “You’re not replaceable.”
Hood’s snarl hurt his throat. The bitingly well-crafted arguments were falling apart in his head. He needed to find his footing again, fast. “Where’s Batman? Lurking? Waiting? Ready to swoop in should I deign to pull the trigger? Don’t pretend you haven’t brought him, Boy Wonder. ”
“I didn’t,” Nightwing insisted anyway. His tone softened. “I’m not ready to share you until I’m sure you exist.”
Hood scoffed harshly. “What do you think I am, a figment of your imagination? A boogeyman?”
Nightwing shuffled lightly to the right this time. (Was that discomfort Hood spotted?) “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Hood finally turned on his heel, pacing to satiate the bubbling anger. This was not going as planned. “Don’t claim you actually cared . Don’t…”
“I wasn’t a good brother,” Nightwing murmured quietly, unbearable understanding sinking into his tone. “Not for a while, but… I did care. We went to the Alps together, Jason. We went skiing. We went train surfing and skydiving and we hit up our favorite ramen joint every other Thursday night.”
Hood’s throat felt inexplicably dry. “I don’t remember that.”
Nightwing went still. “ Any of it?”
“I…” Hood tried to rake a hand through his hair, but his helmet was in the way. Why can’t I remember? Why… “Look, I came back wrong, okay? Most of me is missing. I’m not coming home; I don’t fit anymore, so don’t even try.”
“Jay, you did come back,” Nightwing insisted with a quiet waver, and suddenly he wasn’t Nightwing anymore, he was Dick Grayson, and he was drifting closer for a damn hug. “I don’t want to imagine, can’t imagine what you’ve gone through to get here, but you’re here. It’s me and you and us up here, Jay, so what do you want?”
“I want to hurt people.” Hood edged back, trying to keep the distance between them. His voice sounded funny even through the modulator. “I want to hurt you .”
“You’re lashing out.” Dick took another step forward. “You want someone to scream at, right? Scream at me. C’mon, shoot me, fight me, hurt me if you want that so bad, but don’t make me leave.”
Hood’s heel hit the edge of the roof. “You don’t even know me.”
Dick’s smile was unexpectedly emotional. “I know you still care about the little guys. I know you have a little guy of your own. I know you’re waiting for someone to care about you, because no one goes that out of their way to prove a point unless they’re hurting over it.”
“I’m not hurt, I’m ANGRY!!!”
“Anger is a secondary emotion, Jay!!!”
“FUCK your secondary emotions!!!” Hood pulled a feint to the left, then dodged to the right, trying to get past. Dick stepped directly into it, colliding with Hood’s chest, and held on. His hug was like plunging into a well of memories; vibrant and soft and achingly warm. They flowed effortlessly around the edges of Jason’s vision, turning green back to dull grays, blacks, and browns. Jason choked on a sob.
“I knew you’d move that way, didn’t I?” Dick mumbled into his ear. His voice wavered, and this time, Jason felt a gentle plip-plip against the collar of his jacket. “Let me learn who you are all over again. I want you back, Little Wing, ground up, just as you are. Let me prove it to you. Let me in.”
Jason reached up one-handed, scrabbling at the catch of his helmet. The cool air was a blessed relief, but he still struggled to breathe. Someone was trembling--- him or Dick? Let go of me before I shoot your other leg, he wanted to growl, but a soft whimper made its way from his throat instead. “The kid isn’t… isn’t mine. He’s B’s. Talia’s. I stole him.”
Dick’s arms stiffened, then squeezed impossibly tighter. “The League had both of you. Shit… you ran.”
Jason curled his fingers into the stretchy bullet-resistant material of the Nightwing suit, trying to shove him away; trying to… trying to think . “He’s mine now. She gave him to me; he’s MINE. I raised him and fed him and taught him to w-walk…”
“Okay. Okay. I believe you.” Dick threaded his fingers through Jason’s hair. It felt so damn good--- “He’s yours now, I got it. He always was, right? You protected him from the League.”
Jason’s breath caught. Why was this so viscerally uncomfortable? (Why couldn’t he let go?) “Not… not always.”
“You got him out of there. You got him to Gotham.” Dick’s voice cracked. “I’m so proud of you.”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the tears pooling behind his domino. He’d worn a domino because he knew his eyes would glow tonight. One can of worms at a time. “Are you going---” He choked again, swallowed, and retried. “Are you going to tell him?”
Dick finally pulled away, holding Jason at arm’s length. “About the kid? No, Jay, no. He… He has a right to know---”
Jason sucked in a sharp breath.
“--- but you’ll be the one to tell him,” Dick finished quickly, grip tightening. “The kid isn’t really my business, Little Wing; you are. And when you--- if you reveal yourselves--- I’ll be your backup.”
Jason tried desperately to stay present, but the more Dick spoke, the lonelier he felt; the more fuzzy memories floated to the surface. “He was so damn small, Dick. She put him in my arms like I didn’t drop every other damn thing she gave me, but I held him, I… I trained with him. I was a zombie before--- He protected me, dressed me; he was the only one…” His voice cracked. He gave up, trying to pull away. Enough of this emotional bullshit---
Dick, obviously, did not let go. “Wait, Little Wing, don’t… don’t run. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. You need someone to watch your back so you can watch his, right? I’m here now, Jay.”
“Unhand him at once,” a small voice snapped, and then Damian was clambering up Jason’s side, one hand full of daggers, one to cling. Dick actually stepped back with raised hands, lenses as wide as they could go, and Damian hissed at him.
“Oh my God…” Jason settled the kid on his hip, pushing the daggers down. “What did I say about stabbing?”
“That I might not need to,” Damian muttered with a critical side-eye. He put away the daggers, clinging even more stubbornly once both hands were free, and addressed Dick like a damn servant. “I suggest you make yourself useful before we make ourselves scarce.”
“Why the anger, small fry?” Dick shot back, grinning. “You’re the one who wanted me here in the first place.”
Jason raised an eyebrow at Damian’s suddenly avoidant gaze. “Is that so?”
Damian squirmed uncomfortably, bravado evaporating. “You need allies, Akhi. Bigger ones than I.”
“Dick, this is Damian al Ghul, Ibn al Xu’ffasch, my resident troublemaker.” Jason’s hug tightened somewhat possessively. “Dami… Dick Grayson. You remember the stories.”
Damian gave Dick another critical once-over. “You were the first child warrior Robin, so you are due my initial respect. Cause Akhi to cry like this again, and I will feed your liver to the dogs.”
“Oh my God, Jay,” Dick breathed out. “he’s adorable .”
Damian puffed up exactly like an irritated baby bird. Time to head off the tension. “He’s a prince, Dickhead, so watch the dad jokes.”
“What?” Dick’s grin widened. “I’ll have you know that I met the Queen of England once an’ she loved my puns. Hi Damian. Little brother numberrrrrrr… three? Could I hug you again? I feel like you would benefit from hugs.”
“It’s not safe out here.” Jason bent to pick up his helmet, glancing around through the leftover tears. The sudden exhaustion was killing him. “I checked the perimeter, but we’ve risked enough as it is.”
Dick suddenly clapped his hands, making everyone jump. “Sorry… sorry.” He clapped quieter. “Sorry, soft noises. Uh, I brought a car. Y’know, in case you wanna… go get some food. Dami, do you like food?”
“This Grayson does not appear very clever,” Damian muttered aside.
Jason shoved his helmet back on, shaken. He’d forgotten how… high energy… Dick could be. “It’s a show, kid. He’s as dangerous as they come. Yeah, Wing, Batburger. No more questions. I’m on a strict self care regimen of one personal crisis a night.”
“Right… right, of course. No more questions.” Dick lead the way down the fire escape, limping to a parked mini van, and awkwardly opened the back door. “I didn’t exactly know his size, but I figured… better safe than sorry, right?”
Jason stared at the car seat, flashed back to all the motorcycle rides, and grimaced. He’d forgotten about… uh, child safety laws. (Dick had been so sure of this outcome that he’d bought a car seat? )
Damian took one look before laying down an emphatic “No.”
Dick shut the door with a bright smile. “Y’know, I think you’re right. It’s a beautiful night out. Let’s walk.”